


Uncomfortable Truth

by Infie



Series: On The Road [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Conversations, Episode Related, Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 02:50:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3961681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infie/pseuds/Infie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for Season 3, E3.21, E3.22, E3.23</p><p>Oliver is thinking about the rift with Diggle and asks Felicity if she feels the fences can be mended.  Her answer isn't what he's hoping to hear, but it may be what he needs to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncomfortable Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the night before the road trip starts.

"Do you think Digg's going to be able to forgive me?" He was a little surprised to hear the words leave his mouth. His hand was petting the silky softness of Felicity's hair as she stroked her hand over his chest and stomach, both of them simply revelling in the unaccustomed closeness and the precious internal harmony that had been missing so painfully for the past several months. He wasn't sure where, exactly the thought had come from. 

That was a lie. He knew exactly where the thought had come from. It came from his fear. 

Felicity's hand stopped on his chest and simply _pressed_ , and he realised he'd started to shift a little as if to sit up. 

"I thought you guys talked," she said softly. 

He rolled his lips between his teeth in disquiet. "We did, but only for a minute. We're ... better than we were. But we're not ok." He tilted his chin down so that he could look into her eyes. "Is he going to forgive me?" 

Felicity licked her lips before heaving a sigh and sitting up. "No," she said with the brutal honesty that he treasured, and that felt this time like a punch to the gut. "He's not." 

Oliver looked away. 

"John... he understands, what you were doing. He's already forgiven a lot. The fight at the warehouse, the virus in the dungeon, that you acted like a dick." She smiled and turned his face back to hers with a single insistent finger. "But some things, he's never going to really get over. And he's right not to." 

He blinked hard, trying to make the sting in his eyes go away. 

"Lyla," he said. 

"No. That'll take him longer but he'll get there. He understands necessity, and Lyla's the strongest person any of us know. If you had to take any of us, she's the right one." Felicity shook her head. "No, it wasn't that it was Lyla. It was _where_ it was Lyla. It was Sara." 

Oliver frowned. "I kept a watch on the apartment..." he started. 

Felicity sat up, and the look on her face had him shutting his mouth with a snap. "You had League assassins take her mother, in front of her, using violence. You couldn't have known for sure that it wouldn't go badly, that Sara wouldn't see her mother hurt or killed," she said baldly, "and you left that child alone in the apartment, _screaming_ in fear, for an unknown amount of time. If you'd seen her when we got there..." She gave her head an abrupt shake as if to jostle the memory out of her head. "John and Lyla wanted you to be her godfather! They wanted her to go to you if something happened to them both, Oliver... they wanted you to be her father if they couldn't be there for her. You - the person they trusted most - did that to her. It wasn't even brainwashed Oliver or evil Oliver. It was _you_." She subsided as she caught sight of the look on his face. "I ... uh. Might have some residual anger, too." She lay back down with her head on his shoulder. 

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against him. "I didn't..." His throat closed on him, choking off the words. "I knew he'd be back," he managed finally, "I didn't ... I didn't think." He was thinking now, though, wasn't he? Thinking of the tears streaming down Sara's face as she screamed for her mother, as he and the League dragged Lyla out of the apartment. How he'd closed his ears to her cries, hardened his heart against her fear. "How did I do that?" He demanded of the air. "How could ..." The words choked off again. 

Felicity set a kiss against his throat. He could feel her soft lips as he swallowed convulsively. "I think you may have been more affected by the drugs Ra's was giving you than you want to admit," she said. "Or, maybe not. Maybe you just did what you felt needed to be done, no matter what the cost, because there were hundreds of thousands of people at risk." 

He risked a glance down, afraid of what he would see on her face, but she was looked back at him with such pure love... It made him warm. It soothed all the wounds of self-loathing that had be threatening to reopen as he considered his actions as al Sahim. 

"Maybe you just made a mistake. One of many," she continued inexorably and he couldn't help but smile at her, "and a really, _really_ huge one because it's cost you something really precious and some things you can't take back, but..." She gave him that glorious smile that he never felt he deserved. "That's how we learn. And you wouldn't do it again, would you?" 

He bit back the automatic 'of course not' and considered her question carefully, needing to be completely honest. Would he do it again? Would he take Lyla in the name of hiding his true intentions? 

"Parts of it, yes," he finally said, hoping she'd understand. "I would never again put Sara in any danger, though. Or take any chances of her being traumatized. If I had to do it, I would do it differently." 

"John may never forgive you but he will come around. Everyone makes mistakes, Oliver. Even... _especially_ you. We'll discuss that at some point. At length. But you're a good man." She lifted enough to kiss him on the lips, and it felt just as miraculous as the first time. "I love you." 

Somehow, somehow she still managed to believe in him. Was he a good man? Remembering Sara's tears, he really didn't feel like one. But looking into Felicity's beautiful face, beaming with love, made him _want_ to feel like one. "Ok," he said simply. 

"Ok?" The smile turned into a grin as she lifted her eyebrows at him. 

"If you say I'm a good man, then I believe you," he told her. "I've decided to follow my own advice." 

"Oh dear," she laughed outright. "What advice was that?" 

"I love you. You're the smartest person I know," he said and kissed the tip of her nose. "I should trust your judgement." 

"Hmm", she agreed. "That does sound like the best way to start." 

-30-


End file.
